What Kind of Isekai
by FoxShadeZ
Summary: (Original Work) Do you ever wonder what it would be like to end up in another world? I sure did. Until it actually happened. I died and was reborn in another world. Wait, should I really say reborn? I don't remember any of my life in this world before now... And I can't even remember the details of my previous life... What's going on? And why am I a cat-person?
1. Prologue

**(A/N)**

**Hey guys! This is my second story, and my first original one, so I hope you guys like it. I'm sorry if I don't update too often, as this is kinda my secondary story, so my main focus is on my other one. But I'll try to update when I can. Also, I have no Idea where I'm going with this story, as I came up with a start but no end, so we'll just have to see where it goes.**

**So please enjoy, and thanks for reading!**

* * *

Everything was cold. There was no air. I cracked open my eyes to see the light fading around me as I drifted lower and lower into the water. Other than the gentle feeling of the water against my skin and the screaming of my lungs for air, I only felt the tug of the weighted rope wrapped around my ankle.

Somewhere in my mind, I felt regret. Regret for deciding to end it all. Regret for the things I left behind. Perhaps I could have turned things around. Perhaps I could have fixed things. But it was too late now; I had already taken the plunge - literally.

My life had been a disaster, one thing after another. The repeated divorces of my parents, the attempted suicides of my siblings, never being able to get into a good college or to be able to find a job - it all contributed to my spiraling depression. I had never really known what I wanted in life, so I had wandered aimlessly, searching for a purpose. I had tried to find love, but it never lasted longer than a week, and I had never truly felt anything for the ones I dated. Anytime that I had thought I had found my calling, my inspiration for it was gone within a month. My only happiness had been found reading books.

So what had even been the point? I had only stuck around so long because my favorite story was still going, but it finally ended a few weeks ago. It was over. The characters that I had come to feel were my only friends would no longer continue forward. How was I supposed to go on, knowing that I would never be able to know what happened next, or where the characters ended up after the book was closed? Sure, I could've reread what was already written, but that was like reading history books, looking over events already set in stone, knowing that things weren't going to change.

So really, what was the point?

Gradually, I began to feel more and more like I couldn't hold my breath, the pains in my chest proving their lack of oxygen. Just before the last of the light from the surface faded, I let out a breath and watched as the last of the air I would ever breath floated away from me in a stream of bubbles.

* * *

"Suicide, hmm?"

I heard the voice before anything else.

"I guess it's not too uncommon in this day and age…"

I opened my eyes to find myself in a living room I had never seen before, slumped ungracefully over a cushy couch. A young-looking girl with the shape of someone you would only find in an anime was leaning over me, purple eyes gazing at me quizzically.

The girl brushed some of her silver hair out of her face before experimentally poking my slightly-pudgy belly, which had been exposed from my shirt sliding up a little. "But you're not too different from me before I came here…"

Realizing that this had to be some kind of afterlife, I had to ask. "Are you God?" Of course, I was an atheist, but when you see someone with inhuman beauty standing over you after you know for a fact that you died, you begin to question things. "Or perhaps an angel?"

The mysterious girl just snorted and retracted her hand. "If it makes you feel better, you can call me that, sure. But I'm not." She sauntered over to the other side of the room and plopped down in the nicest looking chair in the space, leaning forward and tenting her hands. "Have you ever heard of isekai?"

Sitting up in an attempt to get more comfortable, I nodded my head vigorously. It was one of my favorite things. Just the thought of getting to go to another world and away from my mess of a life sounded like a dream come true.

"Good, that'll make this easier." The silverette smiled, her teeth shining a brighter white than I'd ever seen anywhere outside of movies and toothpaste commercials. "Turns out, you're one of the lucky few souls that is capable of traveling between worlds after death! The only catch is that you can't return to your previous world. Oh, and while I say lucky 'few,' there are actually quite a few of us. It's just that it's a small percentage compared to the number of souls that can't."

"Wait, you said 'us'... You're one, too?" I rubbed my eyes. For some reason, I felt dead-tired. Perhaps it was because I had just died. "So this is the other world that I ended up in?"

"Yes and no. This is the inbetween space. A few isekai 'victims' decide to stay here, like me. They often proclaim themselves as gods and spirits and whatnot, but, make no mistake, they're just like you and me." I pointedly looked at self-proclaimed isekai victim's distinctly inhuman characteristics, such as her unnaturally colored eyes and hair and her flawless alabaster skin. "Oh, I forgot to mention that we can do pretty much anything we want in this space once we figure out how! Though some people find certain things easier than others. I turned myself into an OC from a fanfiction I was writing before I died. I also made this entire house and its contents. If you were to step outside, you would see pure white void as far as the eye could see."

I looked out the window, where the clear blue sky and a deep green, flower-covered field were clearly visible, and birdsong sounded through the glass. What? Shaking my head, I looked back at the strange girl. "So, if you could reincarnate, why did you decide to stay here?"

"Well, I can watch all the others if I stay here!" She smiled mischievously. "And before you ask, no, not in an 'oh, I'll help you on your journey' type of way. I just like the stories. It's entertaining. Not to mention the fact that I can eat as much as I want of whatever I want without gaining any weight. And all the stories that I never finished before I died? I can finish them here! I can even go beyond what the authors decided to share, seeing more of my favorite characters."

My eyes widened. "Can I stay here, too?"

"Nope!" She shot me down gleefully. "I don't want the neighborhood to get too crowded, you know? Now where do you want to be sent? Somewhere with others that have been isekaied, or somewhere that you'll be the only one? Or perhaps you have a story in mind that you want to go into? Otome games are pretty popular."

But I wasn't listening. "But… I want to know what happened after all of my books ended… Why can't I stay?"

At this point, the girl, who had been only mellow this whole time, seemed annoyed. "Look, I didn't ask for this job. The only reason my home is right on an appearance point for so many people is so that I can send them on their way and prevent them from cluttering up this perfectly tranquil in between world. Now do you want to choose your world, or am I going to have to choose for you?"

"Why do you get to stay and I don't? Just because you got here first?" I stood up, advancing toward her. "Why don't I have a choice?"

Now the silverette was angry. She stood up, suddenly becoming taller than me and glowing slightly. "You had a choice." She said menacingly. "But you just lost it. I'm known for being one of the less patient inhabitants of this realm for a reason. Perhaps if you had died earlier, you could have stayed, but you didn't." She flicked her wrist, and her smile reappeared. "Goodbye, world traveler, and good luck. You probably won't remember any of this."

"W-Wha-?" I started to say, but the floor dropped out from under me, and I was gone.


	2. First Steps

Suddenly gasping for air, they bolted upright from where they had been laying on the ground. Everything seemed bright - too bright - before slowly adjusting back to normal. _Normal?_ This wasn't normal. The last thing they remembered was dying in a lake, but now they were in the middle of a forest, no water in sight.

_Wait, was there something in between drowning and now?_ They felt as though they were forgetting something - something important - but the more they tried to think about it, the further it slipped from their grasp. _I guess it can't be helped…_

Trying to gain a better idea of what was going on, they took in their surroundings, thinking over their situation. Tall trees loomed in every direction, the young leaves of spring sprouting from the branches. Midday sunshine streamed through the branches, illuminating the moss-strewn forest floor.

If their thinking was correct, then they had been reborn in another world - it was a common trope after all. But which version did it follow? It was most probably a fantasy world, since that was the most common setting. Judging by the fact that they were suddenly in the middle of a forest and not a squawling infant, they hadn't been _reborn_ per se, so that cut out a few of the options. This didn't appear to be an otome game, as protagonists of those tended to have memories of their current life in this world, which they had none of (not to mention the fact that they had never really played any otome games for this to be based off of). Though still possible, it was unlikely that they had been summoned here to defeat a demon lord, as no one was here to greet them. At the moment, they couldn't think of any more common tropes, except…

"Menu! Status!" Nothing happened. Well, it had been unlikely anyway. But, as soon as they spoke they realized that their voice was higher pitched than they were used to. "What's going on? Am I a child?" It had an almost squeaky quality to it. Now that they thought about it, everything _did_ seem oddly large. And their arms _did_ feel awfully thin… "Wait, my arms! Since when do I have fur on my arms?" A thin layer of silvery fur ran from their hands to their elbows, where it gradually thinned back to the light hair they were used to. And the nails on their fingers were now thick and pointed, like the claws of a cat. "A cat?"

They patted their head. Sure enough, their human ears on the sides of their skull were gone, replaced by cat ears that protruded from their hair. Their feet felt odd, too, and when they looked down they found that they appeared to be standing on almost only their toes. Balancing on one furry foot, they bent a knee to look at the bottom of their foot, discovering pads like that of a cat.

The final thing… They closed their eyes and took a deep breath before turning in an attempt to see behind them. Their tail, silvery and striped with dark gray, swished back and forth in agitation.

For some reason, they didn't like their fur being silver. They had no clue as to why, though.

"Wait..." they didn't even know what gender they were. They were too young to be able to tell if they were female just from glancing at their chest, so they used their only other option. "Female…" She sighed. "That works…"

When she took a moment to look herself up and down, she noticed how nice of clothes she was wearing. She found this to be odd, as she remembered it to be a common thing for beast people to be discriminated against. Normally, she should be wearing rags or at least peasant clothes, but she was wearing a dress of fine blue and gray silk.

"Well, this isn't normal…" She spoke aloud, attempting to add some noise to the unnerving quietness of the forest. "Normally, I should be reborn as a human and meet the cute cat girls, not become one! Okay, okay… What do I do now? What do I know? My name is… is… Well, that memory's gone. What _do_ I know?" Clutching the front of her dress just to give her hands something to do,she started to wander, uncertain as to where to go. She was a little wobbly at first due to her changed center of balance, but after a moment she got used to it. "I died - drowned myself to be more specific. Why did I do that again? Something about a sucky life? It's kinda fuzzy around the edges. But I think I remember most everything that isn't personal information. Which is why I can still remember the stuff about isekai…" She knew she was rambling to herself, but she couldn't stop. The sky was starting to glow orange with early evening. "I don't know who or where I am. I don't even know if I'll be able to understand someone if I meet them. I don't have any money, nor do I even know the currency for this world. There's an adventurer's guild, right? There always is. I could find a job through that!" Remembering her young appearance, she sighed. "Or not. I'm probably too young. Not to mention the fact that I don't have any skills with fighting or magic. Is there magic in this world? If so, is it something that comes naturally, or that I have to study hard for?"

Finding what appeared to be an animal trail, she followed it, still speaking to herself. But, after what felt like ten or fifteen minutes, she grew too tired to both speak and walk, so she chose to do the latter, as the young beast girl was worried as to what might lurk in the woods at night. Hopefully, she could find a town before dark, or, if nothing else, a road. She was getting thirsty, though, and hungry. She didn't have any food or water on her, and she had never hunted a day in her life. She kept going. She could last for a short while without either, perhaps she would get lucky.

And lucky she got, because before the hour was up, the walls of a town became visible through some openings in the trees. The walls were made of gray stones, carefully pieced together to look good and sturdy. She could just barely glimpse a couple of guards at a gate that was off to the left.

"Thank the god I don't believe in…" She muttered under her breath, her lips cracked with thirst. She had no idea if they would be able to understand her, but she could always pretend that she was from a foreign country if they didn't. She hurried forward.

"U-Umm… Hello?" Both the guards turned towards her when she mumbled a greeting. She was slightly surprised to find that they, too, had animal ears - they both appeared to be dog people. "Excuse me. I think I'm lost. Where is the Adventurer's Guild?" It was a safe bet. In most of the isekai stories she had read, they could give you an ID and help with other things, like figuring out your stats.

But the dog men gave each other confused looks before turning to her in curiosity. "Adventurer's Guild? I've never heard of that, especially not here." The nearest was the one that spoke. He turned to his companion, who only shook his head. "I don't know what stories you've been reading, kid, but you need to learn to separate them from real life."

"O-Oh…" She looked away, dejected. She could feel her tail still behind her in disappointment. What was she to do now? She had nowhere to go. Would these guards even let her - an unknown child - into the town?

"Young Miss! Young Miss, where are you?!" She could hear the sound of a woman calling on the other side of the gates. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she peeked her head around the corner, only to immediately tumble backward in an embrace. "Young Miss! Thank the gods you're safe! Where have you been all this time? You go off and disappear for two days without so much as a note? Everyone at the manor is worried sick!"

"E-ehhhh?!" She was the one being searched for? So that meant that this body didn't originally belong to her, but this "Young Miss" person. What had happened to the body's original inhabitant? But this was a somewhat common trope, too, so she tried not to let it worry her, deciding to roll with it. Perhaps this was even the reason that she felt like she was forgetting something - the gap in her memories that the previous cat girl had left. "I-I'm sorry, but I can't remember anything… I think I hit my head when I was in the forest…" I rubbed my head with one hand (paw?), surprised to find that there actually was a painful bump just above my right temple.

"What?!" The woman held the cat girl away from her, looking her up and down with concern. "But you look just fine…" She started to say before her worried amber eyes landed on the bump on the girl's head, and her frown deepened. Now that she could get a good look at the woman, the girl found that she appeared to be a fox person. One would probably think that a fox person would be young, with plenty of curves, but this one was middle-aged, with gray sprinkled through her red-orange hair and a good bit of weight to her hips.

"She was saying some pretty weird things before you arrived," One of the dog guards told the fox. When he noted just who she was, though, he turned back to the girl. "So, you're part of the eccentric old bats' brood? Even with their protection, you should be more careful, especially at night." He looked to where the sun was just dipping below the horizon, casting long shadows. "The city's almost as dangerous as the woods when the sun sets."

Shivering, she remembered her thought in the forest about what might be lurking after dark. "Oh, okay…" I didn't know what else to do. The fox woman's fingers were digging painfully into the cat's upper arms, as though she'd take off back into the woods at a moment's notice. she'd didn't even know where to go if she did. _Wait, the dogs said that I was a part of a group… 'The eccentric old bats' brood'? Well, that doesn't sound very kind, but who am I to say?_ She wrapped her arms around her chest. "C-can I go home?" She asked the fox.

Her eyes softened. "Of course, Young Miss." Her grip on me released and she held out a hand to her, which she swiftly took. "I suppose I should lead the way. Everyone will be so glad to see you home safe. And in the morning, we shall have your wound seen to."

_Everyone? Just how many people are there? _

As the woman - who had yet to name herself - led the young girl into town, the girl looked around in amazement at the fire-lit town. It looked like it was pulled right out of a fantasy novel. Cobblestone streets paved the way, lined with closed shops and noisy inns. Further along, she could see small houses with windows already darkened for their sleeping inhabitants. A few people wandered the quiet town - all of them beast people. Just budding flowers were everywhere - in pots, in gardens, sprouting from cracks in the pavement, trailing down the sides of buildings on vines - everywhere. In fact, the whole place was covered in greenery, as though instead of building in a clearing or taking down trees to make the town, they had just built it in the forest and left the trees in place. At least, that was what it felt like. If they had really done that, the trees probably gotten in the way of so many things.

She realized after a moment that they were heading deeper and deeper into town, where the buildings got larger and fancier with each step. That could only mean…

"We're almost there, Young Miss. It's just up ahead. There." She pointed to where a giant mansion, even bigger than those around it, towered ahead.

A part of her was excited, but she also felt fear. Whoever took care of her - be they parents or guardians or whatever else - appeared to be nobles. That never turned out well in the stories.

_What have I gotten myself into?_

* * *

**(A/N)**

**Hey guys, thanks for reading and I hope you liked the first chapter.**

**I know that not many people are reading this (only 4 have at this point...), but I just thought I'd put it out there that if anyone wants to throw out character ideas, that'd be cool. I'm about to need to introduce a bunch of characters, and I only have like 3 out of however many I need. They'd need to be animal people, like this chapter indicates - particularly mammals (no bats).**

**Thanks for reading this far!**


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